Learning To Fly: A Saki Enomoto Pseudo-Route

Ignition :: Glamorous Glennis

AN: Final chapter of Act 3! Song below!

-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-

I hate waiting.

I hate waiting at doctors' offices.

I especially hate waiting at doctors' offices when there's someplace else I'd rather be.

With a sigh, I start filling out the mountain of paperwork clipped to the board on my lap.

"I'm going to get a coffee," my father mentions, nodding towards the machine on top of the nearby table at the other end of the waiting room. "Do you want any?"

"No thanks," I say, giving him a brief glance and smile before I turn back towards the task at hand.

Name. Sex.

Honestly, I really should just get a stamp made with all that information at this point. Or business cards. This isn't even the first time I've been to this office since I've been back in town. You'd think they could just staple this form to those.

Age. Date of birth.

Argh. Why would you need both of those things?

I can hear my father pouring the liquid into the cup, the only other sound in the room besides my pen scratching the paper and the faint click of a keyboard behind the receptionist's desk. When my phone vibrates in my pocket to let me know I have a new text message, the relative volume makes me jump.

Just got to the station.

"Was that her?" my father asks.

I nod and slip the phone back into my pocket. "She just got in."

"Well, hopefully I'll hear from your mother in a few minutes."

I still find it hard to believe that things worked out the way they did.

When Saki called me several days ago asking if she could come up, I didn't know how to respond. All I could do was call my dad and briefly describe the situation. When I got home that night, I gave them a more thorough explanation, wincing every time I stumbled over or let loose a detail I was trying to hold on to.

I didn't even have many details, and that hasn't changed. Saki and I haven't spent much time on the phone the past few days except to make and confirm plans, so I still don't know where her father took her that pushed her over the edge.

Given how terse Saki was in the few times we did talk, I figured it was a good idea to follow her lead and keep our conversations brief.

Fortunately, I think my parents picked up on that reluctance, and they understood the situation was far more serious than just me trying to ask if my girlfriend could visit. When they both said yes, I was relieved beyond measure.

Even with a day to plan, there was still one problem.

Today I have a doctor's appointment. In fact, it's the last one I'm supposed to have when I'm out here, and it's with Mr. Toshinori, my primary physician I've been working with since I was in recovery. This is a visit where my family, myself, and my doctor all sit down to discuss the results of the tests I've had done the last few weeks. Once we go over that, Mr. Toshinori is supposed to cover what changes, if any, should be made and what the next few months should look like. Both of my parents had both taken the day off of work for this appointment so they could be here.

Well, one parent at least. Dad's here with me. Mom is currently at the train station, because of the aforementioned problem; Saki's train was due to get in about the same time as my appointment was supposed to start, but clear on the other side of town from where the doctor's office was.

With only one car, my mother's most logical solution seemed to be to drop the two of us off early at the doctor's office and then go to the train station to pick up Saki. Knowing my appointment could take a few hours, she said they could grab an early coffee or lunch and pick us up whenever we were finished.

I have my own reservations about that, but they're outweighed by how thankful I am that my parents agreed to this.

"Thanks again, Dad. I really appreciate this."

"Don't worry about it," he says, sitting down next to me. The smell of hot coffee hits my nose and I feel a tad remorseful I didn't take him up on his offer. Back to the paperwork.

Height. Weight. Eye color. Hair color.

That's easy enough. Maybe this won't take as long as I thought.

Please list any medications you are currently taking.

...never mind.

-~*~-~*~-~*~-~*~-

Almost two hours later, my brain is mush.

I enjoy science and math, but when you've been bombarded by talk of numbers and huge words while being shown page after page of said numbers and huge words, it all kind of blurs together in spite of how hard you try to pay attention.

Mr. Toshinori is nothing if not thorough. He's pointing out to me and my dad on charts what one number meant several months ago, and what a new number means now. He repeats this process dozens of times, and even though I'm trying to pay attention, I'm quickly overwhelmed.

The only breaks we get is when he references back through his folder and asks for clarification on something or other, almost always involving something Nurse reported from Yamaku.

Throughout the inquisition however, the mood is a good one.

Almost all my numbers are where they should be or better than expected. Even if I don't quite understand what those numbers represent, the man in the white coat across from my father and I does his best to make sure that positivity gets across.

Finally, he takes off his glasses and leans back, indicating that we're near the end.

"The staff at Yamaku have been sending me updates every week. Between what I've been seeing on your charts, the test results from the time you've been here, and just seeing you, I'm thoroughly impressed with how you've been doing."

I wonder how Nurse has been sending updates every single week when I've missed more than one of my weekly checkups. Nurse may be giving me some slack and covering for me, but I really should try harder to make it to those.

"So, I know what it says in the data, but I want to ask directly. You haven't had any more episodes, have you?"

"No."

"Anything close?"

I hesitate slightly, but then speak honestly. "Once or twice I've overexerted myself, but I was able to pay attention to the warning signs I was taught and keep it under control."

"Good. If you told me you hadn't even had one of those I'd be worried that you weren't getting enough exercise."

"So, what's next?" I ask.

My father clears his throat. "Well, your doctors had a plan they discussed with your mother and I in case there were any complications in the last few months, but since there haven't really been any - right, doctor?"

Mr. Toshinori nods. "Right. Now would be a good time to go over it."

I'm instantly apprehensive, and look back and forth at both their faces. "What's this about?"

"Sorry," my dad says. "He can explain it better than I can."

The doctor finds a piece of cloth on his desk and idly starts to clean his glasses while addressing me. "Do you remember when we were going over initial treatment options in the hospital? How we discussed a pacemaker?"

"...I do," I answer, having retrieved that snippet from an extremely disorganized and incomplete memory bank. It wasn't a conversation we had after they cut back my pain medication, that's for sure.

"The original plan was to have that pacemaker be the next step if you had another attack like the one you had in February. We figured you maybe had a one in five chance of having that happen."

"So...why wait until summer's nearly over to tell me this?"

"We may have recommended going ahead with the surgery this summer even if you didn't have another attack, depending on how your heart was doing," he elaborates. "But if I'm honest, you passed this little evaluation period with flying colors."

"Does that mean I won't need the pacemaker?"

"Not at the moment. Let's see where we are when winter break rolls around, if nothing happens before then. If we need to at that time, we can set up the surgery after graduation. If things go really well and you keep doing what you're doing, it could be years before you need it. Just to make it clear though, it's not a situation of 'if' you'll need one, but 'when.'"

To find out that I won't have to go under the knife again - for a while, anyway - is such a huge relief lifted off my shoulders that I visibly sag. My father notices this, and gently places a hand on my back.

"I'm proud of you son," he says, and I can tell he means it.

"What happens now?"